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DRIVING THE DAY: TECH POW-WOW AT W.H. — Today’s White House meeting, set for 10:45 a.m., is being chiefly billed as a chance to chat about the health care website that has taken up so much of the administration's time over the last two months — but the only peep from tech giants indicates that surveillance reform tops their list. “A number of tech execs look forward to the opportunity to share directly with the president the principles for surveillance reform that they laid out last week and urge him to move aggressively on reform,” some of the firms attending today said in not-for-attribution statement about the gathering with Obama and Biden. The meeting, according to White House guidance, will also touch on the economic impacts of the Snowden disclosures — an issue that some American tech companies have been complaining about for a while. And a broader economic and job creation thread is primed for the participants as well. Jessica Meyers has your curtain-raiser: http://politi.co/1gCDFCE

LEON’S LEFTOVERS — It’s also a good bet that someone from the tech side brings up yesterday’s federal court decision that called the NSA’s bulk phone records collection likely unconstitutional. Judge Richard Leon’s ruling won’t be the last word on the controversial program by a longshot — especially since several other judges have greenlighted the NSA’s implementation of Section 215. For now, though, it may embolden reform supporters on Capitol Hill and rejuvenate those off it, who’ve now gone six months since the first Snowden revelations without so much as a committee vote on significant statutory reforms to NSA authority. Josh Gerstein has more there: http://politi.co/IRfNNu

The ruling also took a shot at the landmark Smith v. Maryland decision that’s served as the linchpin for privacy law since 1979. “This ruling dismisses the use of an outdated Supreme Court decision affecting rotary phones as a defense for the technologically advanced collection of millions of Americans’ records,” Sen. Ron Wyden said in a statement. “It clearly underscores the need to adopt meaningful surveillance reforms that prohibit the bulk collection of Americans’ records.” Burgess Everett has more Hill reax: http://politi.co/1gCAOK5

Major telecom and tech companies were silent in response to Leon’s ruling.

GOOD TUESDAY MORNING and welcome to Morning Tech, where we’re heading to the fantasy football championship in one of our two leagues this year. We hope you performed admirably in yours, but either way, we’ll still talk tech with you if you want to chat at abyers@politico.com or @byersalex. Of course, catch the rest of the team’s contact info after speed read.

ADOBE’S RAO: PATENT BILLS CAN BE ‘COMPLEMENTARY’ — This morning’s Senate patent hearing kicks off the upper chamber’s closely watched efforts on patent reform, with seven separate viewpoints coming to the table. Adobe intellectual property counsel Dana Rao will testify and already supports the Leahy-Lee patent bill — but he still says efforts from Sens. John Cornyn and Orrin Hatch are worth looping into the Senate’s legislative efforts. The trio of proposals can work together to “restore balance denying predatory litigants with the ability to exert under leverage over defendants,” he’ll say according to prepared testimony shared with MT.

That’s likely to be the dynamic to watch today — the vibe on who wants what, if anything, added to the Leahy-Lee bill. Rao, in laying out Adobe’s vision for patent changes, will call for legislation that includes language on fee shifting, bonding, customer stays, stronger pleading requirements, discovery cost control, and demand letter reform.

—AND WHAT OF SCHUMER’S BILL? The other big bill in the Senate is Sen. Chuck Schumer’s legislation to greatly expand the Covered Business Method program. House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte axed smaller CBM expansion provisions from his bill to help win more support — but a Schumer aide tells MT that the New York Democrat is full steam ahead on his language. “The House action was premature and not indicative of where votes actually lie,” the aide told us.

** Patent trolls are dragging down American innovators. Apps Alliance members, entrepreneurs, small businesses and job creators are calling on Congress to stop trolls and pass reasonable and essential reform. A New York startup connecting restaurants to their customers was forced to hire more lawyers than employees. Read his story: appalliance.org/trollfighters **

CYBER FRAMEWORK BRINGS OUT PRIVACY DIVIDE — Tony’s has the story for Pros this morning: “A draft set of cybersecurity best practices commissioned by the president and authored alongside industry prescribes that power plants, financial institutions and others should secure their systems by limiting their collection and storage of sensitive customer information — the very data often in hackers’ crosshairs. The language, however, only has served to pit privacy hawks who seek better consumer protections against industries that have long lobbied Washington against any new mandates.”

“Electric utilities and their trade groups, business lobbies like the U.S. Chamber, tech giants including Microsoft, and major contractors like Honeywell have urged the government to stand down. In vague terms, these companies and trade organizations have hinted industry might not back the administration’s final plan in full if it includes broad, new privacy rules — a claim that’s since stirred civil-liberties leaders at the ACLU and others to action.” MORE: http://politico.pro/1hYx5XE

BRILL TEES UP TRANSATLANTIC PRIVACY TALK — Privacy-minded FTC Commissioner Julie Brill has a pair of speaking engagements set for today, first at the Council of Foreign Relations this afternoon and later at the Progressive Policy Institute. Among the privacy and data security issues she’ll talk about are big data analytics and the Internet of Things, as well as kids privacy and her bread-and-butter topic: data brokers. Perhaps most timely, though, Brill says she’ll be addressing the EU’s Commission recent report on the safe harbor program, which called for some changes to be made on the data-sharing deal, but ultimately endorsed keeping it around. More background on Brill’s thoughts on that in a speech from last week, here: http://1.usa.gov/IRdytr

McDOWELL: TOUGH ROAD FOR SPRINT/T-MO — Former FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell sees a slew of hurdles for the potential Sprint bid for T-Mobile, which is likely to be a favorite telecom water cooler topic for the foreseeable future. Among the bumps in the road is a Justice Department antitrust boss that McDowell says may want to keep T-Mobile where it is. “Recently, the head of the DOJ’s Antitrust Division said that he liked the fact T-Mobile was out there as a disrupter in the marketplace, helping put downward pressure on prices and things like that,” he told Fox Business Network on Monday.

Plus, McDowell said, you can’t take cues from the recently approved deal between US Airways and American Airlines. “There’s also sort of a small-R religious conviction within the administration and the FCC that four national carriers is better than three. It’s a different case scenario than the airlines.”

WILL THE REAL BROADCASTER STAND UP — The National Association of Broadcasters and Association of Public Television Stations wants to make sure that Congress and the FCC understand who really represents the industry. NAB spectrum guru Rick Kaplan, in a Monday blog post, went out of his way to explain to policymakers that the industry isn’t setting the FCC up to take the fall if the much ballyhooed broadcast incentive auction doesn’t take off. Seems that the NAB and ATPS want to make sure that politicians on the Hill and regulators at The Portals know they aren’t siding with the Expanding Opportunities for Broadcasters Coalition, which warned at last week’s Senate Commerce hearing that the commission wasn’t doing enough to convince broadcasters to participate in the auction.

“When Congress, the FCC and the public ask where broadcasters stand, and how can we ensure success for the auction — both for participants and non-participants — they should look to NAB and APTS,” Kaplan wrote. “These associations represent America’s television broadcasters — not just companies that happen to hold licenses — and are focused on both the short- and long-term success of the industry.” When asked about Kaplan’s missive, EOBC executive director Preston Padden replied in an email: "I love the NAB and have the greatest respect for its leadership. Auction based payments to broadcasters, based on wireless spectrum values, are the ‘incentive’ that will drive the success of the Incentive Auction and our Coalition genuinely is committed to that success."

** Apps Alliance members, innovators and thousands of small, Main Street businesses are targeted and attacked by patent trolls. Instead of creating jobs and growing their businesses too many app developers, grocers, retailers, and restaurant owners are being threatened, extorted, and dragged into court to fight frivolous lawsuits. Give Main Street businesses a chance to fight back against patent trolls — make the Covered Business Method Program available to more industries, increase transparency in troll demand letters, and protect end users. Read more at http://appalliance.org/trollfighters. **